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Description of  Patronage and Community in Medieval China: The Xiangyang Garrison, 400-600 CE (S U N Y Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture)

The work further seeks to understand the effect of patronage on local society and local culture. On this issue it responds to prior efforts to characterize local society as a fairly integrated community , one in which local elites developed a protective, nurturant community ethos, and for which local men felt a signifi cant sense of loyalty and identity. This idea is put to the test and found wanting. Instead, the evidence suggests that local society was extremely fragmented, with loyalties directed at narrowly defi ned familial ties or social subgroups.